Techmeme: BitTorrent starts testing Bleep, its new P2P messaging platform (Janko Roettgers/Gigaom)

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July 30, 2014, 6:50 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:

Snapchat Said in Funding Talks With Alibaba at $10 Billion — Snapchat Inc., the company that makes a mobile application for disappearing photo messages, is in talks with investors including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) for a round of financing that may value the company at $10 billion, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

Exclusive Interview: Best Buy CEO Says Tablet Sales Are “Crashing,” Hope for PCs — Re/code has landed in Minneapolis to talk to the folks at Best Buy — the last standing nationwide big-box, bricks-and-mortar consumer electronics retailer, with over 1,000 main stores and hundreds of smaller mobile device stores.

More: Digital Trends, SlashGear, TechSpot, PC World, Good E-Reader, TechnoBuffalo, Electronista, BGR and The Tech Report

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Heads rolling at Beats as Apple eliminating redundant positions, Ian Rogers & Trent Reznor to stay on — As Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music nears completion this financial quarter, the Cupertino and Santa Monica, California-based companies have begun work …

More: iMore, VentureBeat, InvestorPlace, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone in Canada Blog, Business Insider, Electronista and App Advice

Tweets: @9to5mac and @monkbent

Maria Kiselyova / Reuters:

Russia wants access to Apple and SAP source code to see if their products are used for spying — Russia wants Apple, SAP to cooperate against foreign spying — * Apple, SAP guard their source code closely — * Russian, Western relations strained over Ukraine

More: Engadget, AppleInsider, The Moscow Times, VentureBeat, DailyTech, Cult of Mac, iLounge, Patently Apple, ITAR-TASS, Electronista, 9to5Mac, iMore and App Advice

Ryan Knutson / Wall Street Journal:

Virgin Mobile intros customizable prepaid smartphone plans with options for unlimited data on certain services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest — Sprint Will Sell a $12 Wireless Plan that Only Connects to Facebook or Twitter — For about $12, Sprint will soon let subscribers buy …

More: Gizmodo, Gigaom, Light Reading, TIME, BGR, The Verge, TechSpot, eWeek, Droid Life, Re/code, Engadget, CNET and iMore

Tweets: @iansteadman, @chimeracoder and @qthrul

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Hangouts Now Works Without Google+ Account, Becomes Part Of Google Apps For Business And Gets SLA — Say what you want about Google+, but it incubated two great products at Google: Hangouts for video meetings and Google+ Photos. While Photos is still deeply integrated with the social network …

More: Google Enterprise Blog, PC Magazine, Computerworld, The Register, Gigaom, CNET, CITEworld, PC World, Re/code and 9to5Google

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Yelp Swings To Profitability In Strong Q2 With $88.8M In Revenue, EPS Of $0.04 — Today after the bell Yelp reported its second-quarter financial performance, including revenue of $88.79 million, and a profit of $0.04 per share. The company had net income of $2.7 million in the period, up from a $878,000 loss in the year-ago quarter.

More: Yelp, Marketing Land, Re/code, Tech Trader Daily, Fortune, TheStreet.com, WebProNews and 24/7 Wall St.

Eric Jackson / Forbes:

After several costly errors by CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo could use another activist investor — How Do You Solve A Problem Like Marissa? — [Disclosure: Author was long YHOO at time of writing.] — There's been a sharp response to the post I wrote last Wednesday in Forbes outlining …

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @mdudas and @forbes. Thanks:@techtipster1

Michael Carney / PandoDaily:

EXCLUSIVE: Payments giant First Data acquires Gyft in an effort to bring digital gift cards to the masses — Gyft, a Redwood City-based virtual gift card provider has agreed to an acquisition by payment giant First Data, Pando has learned. The terms of the transaction were undisclosed …

More: Gyft, VatorNews, Gigaom, TechCrunch, ventureburn, NEWSBTC, LOCAL ONLINER and internetretailer.com. Tweets: @arrington

Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek:

Tor Warns of Attack Attempting to Deanonymize Users — The Tor Project has disclosed details of an attack which appeared to be an attempt to deanonymize users of the popular anonymity network. — According to Tor Project Leader Roger Dingledine, the attack was detected on July 4 …

More: The Tor Blog blogs, Gizmodo, BBC, Ars Technica, Wall Street Journal, lists.torproject.org …, ZDNet, SC Magazine, Electronista, Deep Dot Web, Forbes, Telegraph, The Verge, Softpedia News, Gigaom and The Register. Tweets: @csoghoian. Thanks:@wiredmike

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Twitter acquires deep learning startup Madbits — Twitter has acquired Madbits, a deep-learning-based computer vision startup founded by proteges of Facebook AI director Yann LeCun. It's the latest in a spate of deep learning and computer vision acquisitions that also includes Google, Yahoo, Dropbox and Pinterest.

More: ZDNet, Madbits, Fortune, Wired, ReadWrite, Wall Street Journal, AllTwitter, Marketing Land, VentureBeat, Re/code, Guardian, TechnoBuffalo, WebProNews, CIO.com, Beyond Search and memeburn

Mike Futter / Game Informer:

Sony: EA Access Doesn't ‘Represent Good Value To The PlayStation Gamer’ — Following EA's announcement of the company's new subscription program, Access, we were curious about it being tied only to Xbox One. We reached out to Sony for clarification, and it seems like PlayStation 4 owners shouldn't hold their breath for the program.

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Popcorn Time Adds Apple TV Support, iOS App Coming Soon — The Popcorn Time phenomenon is one of the biggest piracy stories of the year thus far. — The software became an instant hit by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

More: The Next Web, BGR, Business Insider, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Softpedia News and TechSpot. See also Mediagazer

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Andrew Mason's Audio Tour App Detour Steers You Away From The Typical Tourist Traps — I'm about 20 minutes late when I meet Andrew Mason at the famous Boudin Bakery in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf district. It's a tourist trap, but it's where Mason wants to meet and who am I to complain?

More: The Verge, VentureBeat, Re/code, Businessweek and WebProNews. Tweets: @producthunt. Thanks:@anthonyha

Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:

Square prepares new reader with support for forthcoming cards with embedded computer chips — Square Bets Big on Next-Gen Credit Card Tech — Square first came to fame with a credit card reader you could plug into your iPhone jack. But next year, the company's signature device …

More: Square, The Verge, New York Times, iMore, TechCrunch, Forbes, Gizmodo, 9to5Mac and The Next Web. Thanks:@emilydreyfuss

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Interim No More: Rob Glaser Named Permanent CEO of RealNetworks — Rob Glaser, who founded RealNetworks in 1994 and served as its CEO until 2010, has been named permanent CEO of the Seattle-based digital media company. He has been interim CEO for the last two years, trying to turn around RealNetworks …

More: GeekWire

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Apple TV overhaul not expected to debut until 2015 — A new report from The Information published today discussing the next generation of Apple TV says the new set-top box won't be ready for prime time until at least 2015. This expectancy timeline aligns with previous 9to5Mac reporting on the Apple TV development progress.

More: The Information, Engadget, AppleInsider, The Verge, MacRumors and TechnoBuffalo. Tweets: @parislemon. See also Mediagazer

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

FreedomPop's free data and voice are now available on tablets — Many people can't really justify buying a cellular-equipped tablet — why pay for more data when your phone probably does the trick? FreedomPop is undoubtedly aware of that thriftiness, as it just started offering its namesake free service on tablets.

More: 9to5Mac, Gigaom, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, CNET, Android Police, Re/code, 9to5Google, App Advice, Gotta Be Mobile, The Next Web, TWICE, Cult of Mac, iDownloadBlog.com and TechHive

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

BitTorrent starts testing Bleep, its new P2P messaging platform — BitTorrent's new P2P chat app is dubbed Beep, and Windows users can now line up to become part of an invite-only test. — BitTorrent is slowly starting to take the wraps off its upcoming P2P chat initiative …

More: Digital Trends, The Next Web, TorrentFreak, Engadget, Los Angeles Times, VentureBeat, BetaNews, Betabeat and Business Insider

James Temple / Re/code:

HealthTap debuts $99/month service for 24/7 video, audio, and chat access to licensed doctors — HealthTap Turns to Telemedicine, but Will Consumers Pay? — HealthTap is unveiling an updated version of its product on Wednesday that puts the startup squarely in the increasingly competitive telemedicine space.

More: App Advice, The Next Web, Forbes, bizjournals, TUAW, Wired and Engadget

Biz Carson / Gigaom:

BitPay cuts transaction fees on starter plan, making bitcoin payment processing free (and unlimited) for merchants — The Atlanta-based payment processor plans to announce today that it's dropped the 1 percent transaction fee on all starter plans. — The financial barrier to bitcoin processing just got obliterated.

More: The BitPay Blog, bizjournals, CoinDesk, Finextra Research news and NEWSBTC. Tweets: @startupljackson

Sam Byford / The Verge:

‘Mario Kart 8’ fails to stem growing Nintendo losses — 2.82 million copies sold, but most to existing Wii U owners — Nintendo made an operating loss of ¥9.47 billion ($92.7 million) in its first quarter of 2014, with the launch of Mario Kart 8 sparking a bump in Wii U hardware sales …

More: CNET, BGR, Engadget, Fortune, GeekWire, Bloomberg, Forbes, BBC, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Geek.com, Metro.co.uk, IGN, Softpedia News, Polygon, Wall Street Journal and destructoid. Tweets: @emi1yrogers

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